PureMobile - Ultimate Cellphone Accessory Supplier- USA

So CrackBerry.com a Blackberry 9700 while at an airport. The most interesting thing was that it was T-Mobile branded. It looks like it's going to be a nice phone. Many people think this was the Blackberry 9020 Onyx that was seen a few months. The Blackberry 9700 looks similar and has the leather backing like the Onyx and Bold do. The 9700 also has 3G and WiFi.

From the previous specs on the Blackberry 9020 Onyx it does seem like this might actually be the first fully featured Blackberry. One where nothing is missing. Usually RIM forgets some feature or lowers it in every Blackberry but the new Blackberry 9700 seems to finally be fully featured.

Like crackberry said.. If you haven't upgraded to the new Blackberry 8520 and your budget allows it then you might want to wait a bit and get teh new Blackberry 9700.

Here's one for the keeping up with the times file. It seems that Black Hawk County, Iowa's 911 service will now be accepting text messages for emergency calls. This comes from MobileCrunch.com.

As is said in the article this seems like a great idea at first but you have to remember there are several issues.

It's only one place for now. Until this is rolled out on a large scale a small county in Iowa will likely only benefit the residents. I mean don't start texting 911 from your phone you might be sorry when no one shows up to help.

Time counts. Texts are nice but it can take forever to reply if you don't have someone that is quick on either end. How many times have you sent a text from your mobile phone and it takes 10+ minutes to get a response from someone. The operator might be quick but trying to get your location might not be as fast.

Texts aren't dependable. This is true. Everyone has sent one, or more, texts that just seemed to disappear into the void of cell phone nothingness. If you get into a car accident or fall down a cliff not getting a response might lead to disaster.

Find you. It's hard enough to trace the cell phone as it is now can you imagine text messages. If the person sends a text but doesnt' say their location and then goes unconscience tracing the exact place this person is might be impossible and that means critical minutes lost.

So althought at first this seems great, and with much improvement it could be great, it does seem like for now this is just a very early adopter. We hope to see more progress like this with cell phones in the future. With more people having phones every day and even more people droping their landlines in favor of a cell phone new methods will be happening all the time, but for now we suggest that you stick to dialing 911 in all cases and speaking to a live person so you know you are safe.

Also if we havne't stressed it enough if you are on a cell and in trouble or trying to help someone in trouble please make sure to tell the operator as exact a location to find you as possible so that in time critical situations they can make every moment count.

So on Friday Apple released an update to the iPhone that patched the exploit/hack we talked about the other day that would let someone gain access to your phone and send messages and control more iPhones. This exploit was for all iPhones, from the original to the iPhone 3G to the iPhone 3Gs.

If you haven't already done so upgrade to the new 3.01 version of the iPhone software so you can avoid becoming a victim of this exploit.

If you have been waiting to upgrade because you are afraid your iPhone will get re-locked don't worry. According to BoyGenius Reports.com it looks like new unlocking software has been released.

So it looks like there is a major exploit set to wreck havoc on the Apple iPhone. This is for all Apple iPhones. Wired.com is reporting on it and they are saying that "a hacker could control all the functions on the iPhone, such as e-mailing, dialing contacts — and, most alarmingly, sending more text messages to hijack even more iPhones." This is really scary since from the sounds of it the person who hacks into your phone basically can do anything they want with your phone remotely.

The only thing you can do to prevent it apparently is turn off your iPhone and you know that you are being hacked if you receive a text message with a single square character according to Forbes.

At this point Apple has not issued any patch to prevent the exploit or commented on it as far as anyone has seen. Also please remember as was stated in the Wired article "researchers informed Forbes of the SMS exploit, it’s worth noting they did not demonstrate it to Forbes." So until we actually see someones Apple iPhone or 3GS get hacked or Apple confirm it we have to say take it with a grain of salt.

It looks like US lawmakers are considering passing legislation banning textng, but only why someone is driving. According to the American Press there are currently 14 states and DC that have banned texting while driving, but this law would ban it throughout the US.

A study released last week by the "Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that when drivers of heavy trucks texted, their collision risk was 23 times greater than when not texting. The also said that "dialing a cell phone and using or reaching for an electronic device increased risk of collision about six times in cars and trucks." So at least from their study it does seem that texting is a lot worse.

To enforce the law states have to ban texting and emailing while driving or they would lose 25% of their yearly highway funding.

The best thing though is some of you out there are wondering if police would go crazy and start ticket anyone but the law will be limited to moving vehicules and parked or stopped vehicules would not be fined.

So for now if you are not in one of those 14 states or DC you can still text or drive from you cell phone, but really think about it should you? Not only are you risking your own life but everyone elses lives that are on the road to and that isn't fair.

So it's been a long time coming but it looks like in September Max OS X users will finally get BlackBerry Desktop Manager. All this comes from MobileCrunch.com

The nice thing is that Mac users will finally be able to sync their Blackberrys to their computer for various things. They will be able to back up their contacts, do transfers when they buy a new phone, sync your iTunes play list, add / remove software. Plus you will be able to update your Blackberry right from the computer

So this is great news. Granted it's taken many years considering Blackberrys and Mac have both become very popular, but better late then never, right?

Wired.com a few days ago had an article, which we actually would like to post our comments on.

1 - A weak brand - We wouldn't call them a weak brand but we do agree they need more marketing. The face time Nokia puts into their US launches is low. With phones like the E71 and the E72 and N86 getting FCC approval some really good phones are coming to market. They just need to market them.

2 - Lack of focus on CDMA handsets - This we had a problem with. Granted we sell GSM phones but overall CDMA is not as widespread as GSM. If you get a quad-band GSM phone you pretty much can go all over the world and get covereage. The same doesn't go for CDMA. Nokia decided it wasn't really a good investment since it's only the US and Canada that really support the network and now it even looks like the two major CDMA providers in Canada are swtiching to GSM. Why support something that looks to be dying off?

3 - Poor execution - In recent history Nokia has made a few mistakes. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic didn't have the best launch which is a shame since the phone as actually a very good one and their apps store, Ovi, had a rocky start as well. Again doesnt' help but anyone can bounce back considering no company has had a perfect launch record

4 - Lack of carrier relationships - This goes back to the CDMA problem. They have phone with AT&T and T-Mobile which is the major GSM networks and it's exactly what they want.

5 - Unusual design - They have a lot of straight body phone and a few sliders. With the amount of people who love the iPhone people are getting away from the flip phone. Maybe we will start to see more

6 - Symbian - Alright it's not a perfect O/S but is there really any that is? Windows Mobile has its problems, Android has its problems, and Apple has their problems as well. Nothing perfect, but at least like all of them Symbian is being constantly being worked on

7 - An insignificant app store - Wired compared Ovi to the Apple Apps Store. First things first the Apps store launched over a year ago, but Ovi lunched in May of this year. They also say compare the 20 000 apps at Ovi to the 55 000+ apps at the Apple store... Again over a year. Personally we feel to have have the apps in only 3 months that's pretty good.

So overall alright Nokia gets no love in the US and yes they don't do as much as they should but overall we think the landscape is changing. Nokia makes some great phones and people just need to start giving them a chance

So word on the street is that RIM is releasing a Blackberry Storm 2. There is still no release date for the phone but currently it will be an upgrade to the Storm. Now the original Blackberry Storm did well. It was popular but like most new phones it wasn't without it's faults.

The new Blackberry Storm 2 will finally be getting Wi-Fi which was a major complaint of the first Blackberry Storm and it will be using the new 5.0 blackberry operating system that is being anticipated by many as a significant upgrade to the current operating system

Lastly and probably most important. According to BoyGeniusReport.com it looks like RIM is developing a GSM version this time so companies like AT&T will be able to carry it.

RIM has said that the new Storm will be out this year so for now all we can do is wait.

US soldiers deployed in Iraq can now get language assistance from an iPhone or Blackberry. Sakhr Software, a company specializing in translation software, is porting its translation technology to work on mobile smart phone devices. It recently developed a tool for the iPhone to enable speech to speech translation. What this means is that you could speak directly into the phone in English and have the phone speak back to you in Arabic. Furthermore, it displays the translation in both Arabic and English characters allowing you to attempt to pronounce it correctly. Quite impressive!!

[/youtube]

For the time being, it seems that the technology had been built to serve the US Department of Defense, to help bridge the communication gap between deployed soldiers and locals of the Middle East and ensure diplomacy is preserved in the field as well as avoid accidents due to miscommunication. We can't wait to see this available to the civilian market where anyone can tour any street in a small town in say Egypt, and be able to communicate directly with the locals.

So according to BerryReview.com it looks like RIM is finally upgrading its support for Gmail. It seems that there is a beta of an Enhanced Gmail Plug-In currently being tested internally at RIM.

This means better Gmail support. If anyone has ever used, or tried to use Gmail on their Blackberry they will know that altought it works through BIS you can't really do much. You can't archieve, star, you can't even report a email as spam. Well all this will hopefully be fixed in the new plug-in.

So now it's just a matter of time, but it looks like Blackberry will finally be doing something about their Gmail support so that means all Curve, Pearl, Bold, etc... users can finally rejoice